Meanwhile, behind him at Stretton House, Mr. Caryll had left a scene of strife between Lady Ostermore and her son on one side and Lord Ostermore on the other. Weak and vacillating as he was in most things, it seemed that the earl could be strong in his dislike of his son, and firm in his determination not to condone the infamy of his behavior toward Hortensia Winthrop.
"The fault is yours," Rotherby sought to excuse himself again - employing the old argument, and in an angry, contemptuous tone that was entirely unfilial. "I'd ha' married the girl in earnest, but for your threats to disinherit me.""You fool!" his father stormed at him, "did you suppose that if I should disinherit you for marrying her, I should be likely to do less for your luring her into a mock marriage?
I've done with you! Go your ways for a damned profligate - a scandal to the very name of gentleman. I've done with you!"And to that the earl adhered in spite of all that Rotherby and his mother could urge. He stamped out of the library with a final command to his son to quit his house and never disgrace it again by his presence. Rotherby looked ruefully at his mother.
"He means it,"' said he. "He never loved me. He was never a father to me.""Were you ever greatly a son to him?" asked her ladyship.
"As much as he would ha' me be," he answered, his black face very sullen. "Oh, 'sdeath! I am damnably used by him." He paced the chamber, storming. "All this garboil about nothing!", he complained. "Was he never young himself? And when all is said, there's no harm done. The girl's been fetched home again.""Pshaw! Ye're a fool, Rotherby - a fool, and there's an end on't," said his mother. "I sometimes wonder which is the greater fool - you or your father. And yet he can marvel that you are his son. What do ye think would have happened if you had had your way with that bread-and-butter miss? It had been matter enough to hang you.""Pooh!" said the viscount, dropping into a chair and staring sullenly at the carpet. Then sullenly he added: "His lordship would have been glad on't - so some one would have been pleased. As it is - ""As it is, ye'd better find the man Green who was at Maidstone, and stop his mouth with guineas. He is aware of what passed.""Bah! Green was there on other business." And he told her of the suspicions the messenger entertained against Mr. Caryll.
It set her ladyship thinking. "Why," she said presently, "'twill be that!""'Twill be what, ma'am?" asked Rotherby, looking up.
"Why, this fellow Caryll must ha' bubbled the messenger in spite of the search he may have made. I found the popinjay here with your father, the pair as thick as thieves - and your father with a paper in his hand as fine as a cobweb. 'Sdeath!
I'll be sworn he's a damned Jacobite."
Rotherby was on his feet in an instant. He remembered suddenly all that he had overheard at Maidstone. "Oho!" he crowed. "What cause have ye to think that ?""Cause? Why, what I have seen. Besides, I feel it in my bones. My every instinct tells me 'tis so.""If you should prove right! Oh, if you should prove right!
Death! I'd find a way to settle the score of that pert fellow from France, and to dictate terms to his lordship at the same time."Her ladyship stared at him. "Ye're an unnatural hound, Rotherby. Would ye betray your own father?""Betray him? No! But I'll set a term to his plotting. Egad!
Has he not lost enough in the South Sea Bubble, without sinking the little that is left in some wild-goose Jacobite plot?""How shall it matter to you, since he's sworn to disinherit you?""How, madam?" Rotherby laughed cunningly. "I'll prevent the one and the other - and pay off Mr. Caryll at the same time.
Three birds with one stone, let me perish!" He reached for his hat. "I must find this fellow Green.""What will you do?" she asked, a slight anxiety trembling in her voice.
"Stir up his suspicions of Caryll. He'll be ready enough to act after his discomfiture at Maidstone. I'll warrant he's smarting under it. If once we can find cause to lay Caryll by the heels, the fear of the consequences should bring his lordship to his senses. 'Twill be my turn then.""But you'll do nothing that - that will hurt your father?" she enjoined him, her hand upon his shoulder.
"Trust me," he laughed, and added cynically: "It would hardly sort with my interests to involve him. It will serve me best to frighten him into reason and a sense of his paternal duty."
